Once again our DVR serves as a catalyst, resurrecting a memory of my first year in college when I was discovering, albeit later than many, Sex and Drugs (I’d had some preliminary exposure to Rock and Roll while still in High School).
The History Channel was showing a documentary on German WWII tanks and many of the talking heads were German vets. One of my college history professors served on the crew of a Jagdpanther and I was wondering if his head was among those talking. I dug out my 1971 college yearbook to remind myself of his name. He wasn’t in the documentary.
But while I was flipping through the yearbook I noticed some forgotten scribbles in the end pages. In addition to the usual admonitions to remember various collage pranks and memorable episodes of overindulgence in controlled substances, two entries alluded to an incident I haven’t thought about for a while.
“Never forget …the weekend of February 27th & especially the night of February 27th, (thanks for saying you were in on it, you really helped save my ass)…”
“Don’t forget the night of February 27, even though you weren’t in on it, it was nice of you to say you were. It helped save our necks.”
I was in my first year at Grand View College, a small two-year school in Des Moines Iowa. It was affiliated with the Lutheran church so despite my lackluster academic record I was a shoe-in because of my family’s Lutheran background. Most of the students lived off-campus in apartments or at their parent’s homes. The only campus residences at the time were The Boy’s Dorm and The Girl’s Dorm. The dorms were late ‘60s buildings and each could accommodate between 120 and 130 students. They had official names but no one ever used them.
In 1971 Grand View was really taking its in loco parentis responsibilities seriously, especially with regard to the residents of the girl’s dorm. Life in the boy’s dorm was pretty laid back. We had a house mother affectionately known as Mamie, and were allowed to (gasp) have girls in our rooms during occasional “open dorm” hours as long as the doors to our rooms weren’t closed and everybody kept at least one foot on the floor. Our building doors were never locked and we could come and go as we pleased all hours of the day.
The girl’s dorm operated under a different set of rules. The house mother was “Mrs. Wagner,” no first-name familiarity there. Boys were only allowed in the first floor lounge and the basement rec room until 10 PM. At 10 PM, males were ejected, exterior doors were locked, and a bed check was performed. If any of the girls were AWOL their parents got a phone call.
We boys would sit in the first floor lounge of the girl’s dorm and watch the objects of our desire come and go through the two doors that led to The Sacred Territory of The Girl’s Rooms. What wondrous delights awaited one who could elude the Cerberus-like eye of Mrs. Wagner and venture into the unknown realms where scantily dressed coeds were no doubt having pillow fights all night long? We burned with lust for forbidden fruit. A panty raid was inevitable.
As I recall, the girls struck first. One night, thanks to a gender-traitor in thrall to her boyfriend, word spread through the boy’s dorm that the girls were going to stage a jock raid before they were locked up. Our perimeter was wide open. We did the only thing we could. We stripped down to our underwear and sat in the lounge awaiting their arrival. The girls screamed down the hall, came to a screeching halt when they saw us relaxing in our tighty-whities, did an abrupt about face, and ran screaming back to their dorm. It was a bloodless victory.
The next day some of the girls were asking their boyfriends, “Do you guys really sit around in your underwear at night?”
Ours was the next move. We would carry the fight to the girls on the night of February 27th.
I don’t remember where I was on the evening of February 27, 1971, but I do remember where I wasn’t — inside the girl’s dorm. However, most of my friends were running up and down the girl’s halls spraying shaving cream everywhere. Several of them were identified by Mrs. Cerberus. They were going to be singled out for punishment.
The whole thing sounds like a harmless prank today, but in 1971 at Grand View College, it was potentially serious stuff. Two of my closest friends, male and female, had just been expelled because she’d been caught in his room several times during the first semester. There was going to be a meeting of the disciplinary committee and the busted panty raiders would be punished. Examples would be made. Expulsion was a possibility.
There were a lot of guys in the girl’s dorm the night of the 27th. If I’d been on campus that night I’d have been there. If all of us who’d participated or WOULD have participated were up for disciplinary action, they couldn’t possibly expel everybody or they’d lose almost half of the on-campus male students in one fell swoop. So all but one of the guys who’d raided the girl’s dorm that night and several of us who would have if we’d been there reported to the disciplinary committee meeting and plead guilty to the same offense. There was some huffing and puffing and finger-wagging, but no one was expelled.
Over the next couple of years the gender policies started to relax a little. “Open dorm” became a regular thing in both dorms instead of a once in a blue moon treat just for the boys. The girl’s dorm was still locked at night but bed checks and calls to parents became a thing of the past. I finally got to experience The After-Hours Forbidden Garden of Earthly Delights when I squeezed my then-31-inch waist through the window of my girlfriend’s room, had my hair put in curlers, makeup plastered on my face, infiltrated the upstairs lounges in an old robe and floppy slippers, and was introduced as a visiting cousin with laryngitis. I’m sorry to report there were no scantily dressed coeds having pillow fights while I was there. However, I did see several girls who weren’t wearing bras.
Of course we screwed it up eventually by doing things like lighting fires in inappropriate places, spelling out “FUCK” in letters three stories high on the side of the dorm using lit and unlit windows, stealing cafeteria trays to use as snow sleds, taking the school mascot (an eight foot tall golden fiberglass Viking statue) from the library and putting it on our roof, and basically turning our dorm into a den of iniquity where police raided to retrieve stolen road signs and clouds of dope smoke rolled up and down the halls night and day. By 1974 both dorms were back in lockdown.
I visited the Grand View College website tonight. The school has become a four-year liberal arts college with 1,750 students and seems to be doing well. I see the boy’s dorm is now called Knudsen Hall and the girl’s dorm goes by Nielsen Hall. They have to use the official names because both dorms are coed.
Heh.
- Poppa
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